McKenzie: “Canucks have Basically Said They’re Not Interested in buying (Luongo) out…”

Is this the weekend we finally see Luongo and the Canucks part ways?
Image via wikimedia commons.

As this weekend’s NHL draft approaches Roberto Luongo scuttlebutt is, like a year old frozen burrito in the microwave, beginning to heat up. The DiPietro for Luongo straight up rumours that punctuated Friday afternoon were good for a laugh and some empty calorie pageviews but not much else, and Mike Gillis said as close to nothing as could be imagined in a Friday Team 1040 interview.

Thankfully we’ve got the godfather of hockey Insiders, TSN’s Bob McKenzie on the case. McKenzie can usually be counted on to provide us with the choices cuts of behind the scenes insight into precisely how a Luongo market is developing in New York this weekend, and on an Insider Trading segment which aired Friday on TSN he did just that.

Click past the jump for more.

The segment was kicked off by James Duthie asking the panel whether or not we should expect to see an imminent resolution to the ongoing Luongo saga. Bob McKenzie’s response suggested that we should, but precisely how this ultimately plays out remains anyone’s guess:

"I would certainly think so. I think no team including the Vancouver Canucks would put a finite deadline on when this has to be solved, but I believe it is the goal of the Vancouver Canucks to come out of this weekend with Roberto Luongo no longer on the roster.

Now they believe there are some trade options available for them, we can’t find them. The New Islanders are apparently out, they’re not interested. The Philadelphia Flyers, we believe Roberto Luongo’s a little too rich for their blood. And yet we continue to hear that there are things in the works and things are percolating, and something may happen.

If not a trade then maybe it’s waivers, and if it’s not waivers the Canucks have basically said they’re not interested in buying him out…"

A Luongo buyout is an expensive proposition (27 million), so on some level it’s understandable that Vancouver Canucks ownership and management would be reluctant to go that route. But 27 million it’s actually less expensive than the amount the Lightning will pay to get out from under Vincent Lecavalier’s deal, and needless to say the Canucks are in much better financial shape than the NHL outpost in Tampa Bay…

Matt Sekeres put the buyout question to Mike Gillis in a Team 1040 radio interview on Friday afternoon, by the way, and Gillis’s answer was essentially inscrutable: "We are in the process of talking to teams about Roberto, and I’m not going to say one way or the other (whether or not we’ll buy him out)."

We’d pivotted off of a David Shoalts article earlier this week, and pointed out that the Bryzgalov buyout, by merely being something that happened, increased the percieved likelihood of an eventual Luongo buyout and further diminished the Canucks’s rapidly atrophying leverage in this situation. So while I wouldn’t be surprised if the Canucks were genuinely and totally set against the prospect of using a compliance buyout on Roberto Luongo’s contract, I would also expect the organization to be telling people publicly and privately that a buyout is a non-starter ahead of this Sunday’s draft…

One other thing I noticed is Florida’s complete absence from McKenzie’s spiel on "options available" to the Canucks on the Luongo trade front. With the Panthers’ plethora of unsightly contracts on the books and their desperate need for goaltending on the ice, I still think South Beach is the most sensible Luongo trade partner for the Canucks (that is if a trade is even possible at this point, which I’d still suggest it is so long as Vancouver takes salary back).

Finally, Bob McKenzie suggested that one group to look out for in this process might be Craig MacTavish and the Edmonton Oilers:

"Keep an eye on the Edmonton Oilers, I’m not saying they’re trying to trade for Roberto Luongo but I do know they’ve had interest in Luongo before. He has a no trade clause, but if he’s on waivers, I’ve got to believe the Oilers are looking for a number one goaltender."

Also worth noting is that James Duthie, who is as close with Luongo as anybody in the media, quickly chimed in and questioned whether or not Luongo would even be willing to go to Edmonton. Of course, if the Oilers claim Luongo off of waivers as McKenzie is suggesting, it’s not like the best goaltender in Canucks franchise history will have much choice in the matter anyway…

Lesson to all players, don’t have 1 team on your list of potential destinations. In the end, this is what hurt him – and the risk he took last summer. It was the most ideal time to trade him, and he said he would only go to 1 team. He knew the risks, and now he’s paying for it. Yowsa, it’s on him and his stupid agent.

Agreed. Let’s not hang all the blame for this fiasco onto Gillis. Lu and his agent really need to take on a major portion because of how they limited the trade possibilities last summer. If a trade (that returns something of value to the Canucks) can’t be accomplished, I would prefer to see Lu waved. That way, if Florida does not pick him up, he will have to go to any other team, whether he likes it or not! But I still have hope that there is a trade to be made out there (including taking salary back) with the likes of Florida, TB, NJ, Philly, or even Buffalo.

Lesson to all franchises: stop with the idiotic contracts. These agents/players/front office groups need someone to save them from themselves.

The contract is bad but the player is elite. It’s a bit of a gamble. I think most GMs wouldn’t want anything to do with Lu’s current deal. I guess all it takes is one GM who will gamble and go for broke. Also, the contract could work out in the end if Lu plays into his late 30s like a Marty Brodeur!

Canucks are in a world of hurt. Near the cap limit. Lu’s contract. Aging core. Many of the core with no trade clauses. Things don’t look too bright for our boys in blue!

Lesson to all franchises: stop with the idiotic contracts. These agents/players/front office groups need someone to save them from themselves.

The contract is bad but the player is elite. It’s a bit of a gamble. I think most GMs wouldn’t want anything to do with Lu’s current deal. I guess all it takes is one GM who will gamble and go for broke. Also, the contract could work out in the end if Lu plays into his late 30s like a Marty Brodeur!

Canucks are in a world of hurt. Near the cap limit. Lu’s contract. Aging core. Many of the core with no trade clauses. Things don’t look too bright for our boys in blue!

Losing Luo with nothing in return should be the final strike for Gillis. I was willing to give him another year but having Ballard and Luo walk for not even later picks tells me that Gillis is not the man who should orchestrate the rebuilding of this team. Furthermore it just gives the haters more fire – an arrogant GM whose moves have been been irrefutably poor decisions in the past few years (minus getting Garrison).

“Misreading the market and costing the owner $27 million is a pretty big blunder. ”

We don’t really know what part Luongo played in this and how much blame should be his. And in MG’s defense, the new CBA significantly changed the market.

“All indications are that he softened his stance on non-Florida destinations as the offseason went on.”

Sure, but were the trades still on the table? How many cities did he add to his list? We don’t have the answers to these questions. Those moves by Luongo may have been too late to make a meaningful difference.

In the weeks I have been reading your posts I honestly can’t remember you criticizing anybody but Gillis. You seem completely unopen to the possibility that other people are also fallible.

My argument was never that Gillis was without blame.

This “softening” by Luongo of his list of preferred destinations that you keep talking about means nothing without context: What destinations did he add to his list? Did they need a goalie at the time? Did they have the required cap space for him or had they already filled out their roster because he waited too long before adding them to his list? Did they have anybody worthwhile to trade? If they traded roster players, would they be able to find replacements?

Increasing the number of teams on his list doesn’t necessarily make possible trades more feasible. Agreeing to go to a team that doesn’t need a goalie wouldn’t make a trade more feasible. Agreeing to go to a team with no cap space wouldn’t make a trade more feasible. By waiting until after the draft and the most important part of free agency had passed before expanding his list, Luongo made himself more difficult to trade. If the Canucks were looking for roster players in exchange for Luongo, how is the other team going to find replacements for those players if free agency has already passed?

It amazes me that you are so quick to pass judgement on Gillis but seem entirely unable to look at anybody else critically.

Luongo didn’t begin to add to his list until late summer. You know, “if the rumours are true”.

Why do you keep going back to Columbus (at least four times tonight) in your examples? It’s probably the least desirable location for Luongo. He could have easily added teams to his list without adding Columbus.

Haha, wow. Rumors are all you have ever had to back up your side of the story. You can’t produce one source that definitively says that Gillis was responsible for the Canuck’s inability to trade Luongo last summer and not: Luongo; Nonis and Burke; and/or Tallon. It’s easy to win arguments when you don’t hold yourself to the same standards you try to hold others.

Botchford is as close to the Canucks as anybody who is not a part of the organization. If you don’t believe what he writes, then nothing you read on this site is going to matter.

This kind of leak should have been expected, even if the Canucks have no intention of moving Schneider. Gillis needs to generate leverage any way he can, and the only way to do that is to remind people that there are other options to buying out Lu.